Stating that the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) had reached a political dead end, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) leader Prakash Ambedkar on Thursday said that NCP chief Sharad Pawar had lost all claim to be a ‘national leader’ after his party's rout in the general elections.
“The dismal performance of the NCP and the Congress in the Lok Sabha elections has reduced Sharad Pawar from being a national leader to being the leader of only the Baramati constituency,” said Mr. Ambedkar, speaking in Solapur.
He also said Mr. Pawar had been ‘caught in the trap’ laid by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Mr. Ambedkar, whose front proved to be a major vote-splitter of traditional Congress-NCP votes, claimed that post the poll results, the VBA had emerged as the main opposition party and not the Congress-NCP combine.
“If you analyse their [Congress-NCP] cumulative vote share, 80% of the votes they received were from the minority community while only 20% constitute non-Muslim votes,” said the VBA leader, who intends to contest all 288 seats in the upcoming Assembly elections.
He also said the parties would have to contest the Assembly polls separately if they wished to rebuild their crumbling organisations.
Mr. Ambedkar, who lost from both the Akola and the Solapur Lok Sabha seats, has forged an alliance with Asaduddin Owaisi’s All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen (AIMIM).
The only VBA candidate to win a Lok Sabha seat was Imtiaz Jaleel, formerly a sitting AIMIM legislator who bagged the Aurangabad Lok Sabha constituency to beat four-time Shiv Sena MP Chandrakant Khaire.
In a bid to cobble up a viable ‘third front’, Mr. Ambedkar has already made an ‘offer’ to Swabhimani Paksha chief Raju Shetti to join his front.
